UND Professor Marcia Mikulak edits new Anthropology Reader

Marcia Mikulak, an associate professor in the Anthropology Department, is fascinated by how people interpret the world around them. We each see something different, and as she explains, "The world that each of us see, tends to be what we believe is right."

We each take what we see and interpret it. As we begin the interview, sitting in her office on a blizzarding Friday afternoon, I notice a lush, green plant close to her window and, for a while, I forget that I am in North Dakota.

Marcia shares details of several of her latest travels. She has spent many years in Brazil working with human rights for the Xukuru people, and has recently started a program of research with human and environmental rights in North Dakota's Bakken oil region.

Today she is excited about her latest success—a new book she edited titled "Searching for a New Paradigm: A Cultural Anthropology Reader." The book takes a thoughtful approach to issues of human rights as well as biology and cultures. When she began assembling the text, she had her students in mind. "I wanted to provide a reader to my students that asked them to view the topics discussed in terms of a variety of perspectives. The goal I had in mind was to assist them is asking the question, "can I view the world from a variety perspectives?"

These questions provide the scaffolding supporting the works included in the reader. "I can only change the world if I can understand how I know what I know, where it comes from, and who it serves, " she says.

A paradigm can be defined as a worldview that shapes what we know and how we ask questions that form our ideas and the ways in which we try to solve everyday problems. I hope the book provides a variety of perspectives about cultural, biological, archaeological, linguistic, and historical perspectives about what it means to be human, and in doing so, pushes my students to attempt new ways of solving old problems and questions. Hopefully, a new paradigm can arise by pushing the limits of my students current understandings about today's perceived realities.

Marcia's approach to teaching Anthropology is very problem based and she looks for a deeper meaning to life's questions. She describes the world as being perceived differently by everyone. "Our sight is really an illusion, our hearing is just based off of sound waves and our language is a symbol," she explains.

She spends a lot of time traveling with students and after two years of research, getting articles, and eliminating materials, Marcia completed her book. She wanted to give the students the exact material that she thought was prevalent for her Intro to Anthropology course, therefor she wrote and edited this book. "I was always looking for more information outside of the textbook", said Mikulak. This book brings together articles that report the polemics or problems surrounding what constitutes an authentic reality of the human experience.

Although Marcia wrote and edited this book for the use of her students, she would also like to see it in other disciplines. "I hope that my reader will be adopted by a variety of disciplines that include sociology, political science, psychology, interdisciplinary courses, honors, philosophy and religion, history and English -- to name a few. The readings are diverse enough that many of the topics discussed apply broadly across many disciplines," Marcia states.

Melanie Herauf

Arts & Sciences

Marcia Mikulak (left), Anthropology Professor and editor of Searching for a New Paradigm: A Cultural Anthropology Reader